23 Years, 4 Months, 8 Days
by BesideYouInTime
Summary: A look into Romilly's time on the Endurance, his life before the events of Interstellar, and his motivations for going where no man has gone before.
1. 1 Year, 5 Days

**Author's Note: **The following is an experiment. I've created this story to fill in the story of Romilly where the film left off. We will explore his 23 years of solitude, as well as his life before the events of the movie. I cannot promise you consistent updates or a word count, but I will be giving you my version of the life of Romilly, and why he chose to go live (and ultimately die) for the human race.

**23 Years, 4 Months, 8 Days**

**By: BYIT**

**Chapter 1: 1 Year, 5 Days**

Romilly's first conscious thought was immediate fear; fluid was filling up his lungs, and fast. His head jolted forward and upward, but was immediately caught by some sort of plastic. Romilly coughed and coughed; violently vomiting fluid. An outside force ripped the plastic away, and Romilly sat up. It only took him a moment to realize what what happening.

"Take it easy, Romilly," TARS said. His monolith shaped form 'stood' next to him, just outside the sleeping unit. "You're waking up, not dying,"

"Very funny, TARS."

Romilly rested his hands back down to the fluid, which was truly only a few feet deep. It was an odd experience, rising up out of the primordial waters that his ancient ancestors must have rose out of. The birth of all evolution lay in these waters Romilly sat in now. Even as a man of science, Romilly found no comfort of these facts.

"How long, was I under?" Romilly asked.

"Exactly how long you told me to keep you down; a year."

"Any contact with ranger? Coop?" Romilly asked. TARS started moving again, towards the side of the room.

"If I could shake my head, I would Rom." TARS said. He began to climb back up to the main chambers of the Endurance.

"And the tests?" Romilly asked.

"I need more time. Ask me again in another year."

"Wait," Romilly nearly shouted. TARS slid back down into the room wordlessly. We've waited how long?"

"One year, five days," Came TARS' response.

"Which puts the Ranger at how long?" Romilly asked. He felt the thick fluid beneath him ebb and flow.

"Somewhere around nine minutes," TARS said. "I told you to be under longer. That's only enough time for them to land, if that."

Romilly sighed. "I guess put me back down for a year," he said, as he laid back down.

TARS began moving back towards Romilly. "Are you sure you don't want to make it two? There's no point in waking up so often, and it's not like I'm going to get any older."

Romilly smiled at the metal form. "I'll tell you what; we'll split the difference. Put me down for 18 months, but after that I'm getting out of this box for a while. You can get some of that talking out of you then."

"I'll be looking forward to it. Happy Birthday."

Romilly sat up again, looking at TARS in confusion. "What?"

"Happy Birthday," TARS said again. "You missed it. I sang the birthday song by your unit in your honor."

Romilly rolled his eyes and laid back down. "Comforting thought, TARS. Good night."

"Night, Rom."

The waters flowed around Romilly once more as the plastic swung over his head. He was submerged and sleeping in seconds.

—

Romilly moved himself to the window; outside, Gargantua stood. A vast and powerful black hole, beautiful as it was dangerous.

"Are you getting this?" Cooper asked through the communications system. His voice crackled and clipped. Himself, Doyle, and Amelia were beginning to enter the cusp of the planet. Their time would soon decelerate at a speed no one could comprehend.

"Unbelievable," was all Romilly could get out. He watched as the Ranger grew further and further away from the Endurance.

"The literal heart of darkness," Doyle noted. Then came silence. Now, Romilly could no longer see his comrades from the small window he could access. His mind raced for something to latch onto; his eyes were drawn back to Gargantua.

"You can just see the collapsed star inside," Romilly said. They were just beginning to enter the cusp. "Singularity…it would solve gravity."

"I can't get anything from it," Cooper came in.

"Nothing escapes that horizon," Romilly answered. "Not even light. All the answers are there. Just no way to see it."

"There's millers planet," Amelia said. Their readings were beginning to slow down. This was the bridge.

"Goodbye Ranger," Romilly said quietly. Their readings slowed down into infinity, and cut off completely.

After he and TARS lost contact with the Ranger, they set to work immediately.

Romilly ran every test by Gargantua. He sent what probes they had by, researched the relativity difference between the two, and even made three spacewalks to study the black hole without being locked into a ship. For every observation they made, TARS quantified and cleared out the data. With each of the five days of research, Romilly would print out the data, launch it out of the airlock, and into the wormhole, where he could only hope NASA would someday pick it up. TARS always wondered about this process.

"There's no point in launching these out there," TARS said as Romilly prepared the third capsule. "No one's going to be flying past Saturn to check if there's a tube of paper."

"It's worth a shot," Romilly said. "It's always worth a shot."

TARS 'walked' away from Romilly. "This is why I'll be your robot overload one day."

"Whatever helps you pass the time," Romilly muttered as he launched the capsule. He watched it enter the wormhole and disappear entirely.

After the fifth straight day of studying and surveying, Romilly finally stopped. The gravity readings on Gargantua were interesting, but predictable. Each figure and each number Romilly could come up with were the exact numbers he knew Dr. Brand had back on earth. The only new information was that Brand's numbers were fact, not theory. Yet the key to gravity lifting an entire base off of Earth was just as far away as earth was to Romilly. The only thing to do now was wait and see if more information came at a later time.

So, Romilly spent the past few hours awake running laps around Endurance, and playing other mind games to occupy his time. TARS was busy ensuring the other aspects of the ship were running smoothly. By the time TARS finished, he had no idea where Romilly was. He roamed the large ship freely, until he found him.

Romilly sat on one of the extra beds; earbuds shoved into his ears.

"Romilly?" TARS asked. Romilly opened his eyes.

"What's up? Something wrong?"

"No," TARS said. "Not to my knowledge. What are you doing?"

"Listening," Romilly said. "Coop gave me his music player before he left, and I figured he wouldn't need it when he was spending years on another planet."

TARS fully entered the room. "What are you listening to?"

"Earth," Romilly said. He leaned back onto the bed and crossed his legs. TARS didn't move.

"I don't follow," he said.

"Just different sounds," Romilly said as he closed his eyes. "The rushing of the waters. Rainfall. Wind. Animals. Everything that makes Earth organic and real. Everything that we're looking for out here."

"I thought we were looking for a place to survive," TARS said.

"I don't want to survive, TARS," Romilly said. He took his headphones out and set them beside him. "I want to live."

"You're really not making sense right now," TARS said.

"Look at it like this; right now, I'm living, right? My heart's functioning fine, I've got all my nutrients—all of that. I can live on this ship in space for decades; maybe even the rest of my natural life. But, at the same time, I'm alone. The only people I know are moving at a relative time so slow I cannot comprehend, and my only company is a metal husk programmed to be relatable—no offense."

"None taken, meat sack." TARS spat back.

Romilly let out a slight chuckle. "My point is, TARS, is that we aren't built to survive. Studies prove to us that without you and without hyper-sleep, I would go insane and most likely kill myself after a decade in this box. I'd have a whole host of problems coping with the vacuum of space being so close, simulated gravity, lack of organics—"

"You're not living, then?" TARS asked.

Romilly paused for a moment. "No—at least not in my definition of the word. I'm only surviving. These earbuds, right here, they help me remember life back on earth. They help me 'live.'"

The man and the machine sat silently for a moment. Finally, TARS spoke up: "Play them for me."

"What?" Romilly asked.

"Your 'Earth sounds.' Play them out loud for me."

Romilly nodded, and unplugged the earbuds; letting the rainwater sounds fill the room from the player's speaker. Romilly and TARS sat and listened for a few hours.

—

"Only a year?" TARS asked as Romilly got into the sleeping unit. He felt the warm waters surround him.

"It's my first run, let me take it slow," Romilly said. "Besides, there could be more to learn from the black hole. Run every test I showed you every month or so until I wake up."

"Anything else, my master?" TARS asked.

"Find a way to entertain yourself," Romilly said.

"I think you need to say the same thing to yourself." TARS said.

Romilly slowly fell asleep, and dreamed. He remembered a time; before the launch, or the wormhole, or even NASA. In his pod, on this ship, and millions of miles from home, Romilly remembered…


	2. July 20th, 2035

**Author's Note:** Thank you guys for the initial interest in this story. I hope this next chapter will help give you a feel for my intentions with Romilly. We'll be spending roughly half our time in flashbacks and the other half with the Endurance. No matter what happens in my story, everything leads to the moment Amelia and Cooper return to the ship. Thanks again, and talk to you in the next chapter.

**23 Years, 4 Months, 8 Days**

**By: BYIT**

**Chapter 2: July 20th, 2035**

As Phillip Romilly dreamt in his sleeping unit, his mind wandered to a time before any of this occurred. And he remembered.

The winds were beginning to pick up that day.

"Mom!" Romilly shouted from behind the tall woman. Romilly's mother looked down at her son and smiled; she gently pushed her son in front of her, so that he could lean his body against the railing. Even at this far distance, the rocket was as clear as day to Romilly's eyes. He had been counting down this day for months.

"When are they gonna start?" Came a young voice from behind Romilly; his sister, Erin. This time, it was Romilly's father, who stood just beside his mother that bent down to talk to the young girl. Erin's thick braids were even swaying in the winds.

"We don't know yet, sweetie," He said with his signature fatherly tone. "The men inside have to wait until just the right time to start this launch or else something may go wrong."

"Like what?" Erin asked, as calmly as her first question. Romilly's mother shot her husband a warning glance.

"Nothing too serious," He said, covering his tracks. "The men and women inside are just as anxious as you."

From here, it was another few minutes of anxious standing and waiting. Romilly could remember looking down into the Florida grass, and kicking around a few stray sticks. Erin and her father stood by, discussing how the men were supposed to make it so high, no one could see them for a long time.

To Romilly's left, he could see another girl; she stood as close to the railing as possible; one sneakered foot resting upon the lowest rung. In the strong winds, her blonde hair flew all around her.

"Phillip!" Came a voice behind him. Romilly turned away from the girl and looked up at his father. "It's starting in five minutes."

Five minutes. Five long, anxious minutes. Romilly remembered just how long this time was for his entire life. The anxiety of seeing what he had always dreamed of seeing: spacemen, leaving this planet and going far away, into the space beyond this place. And while Romilly didn't quite have the vocabulary for it at the time, he felt a sense of grandeur looking at these men, knowing that they'd soon be setting foot on another planet; the first men ever to do so.

And so, the five minutes finally gave away, and the roar of the engines took off, giving away to loud cheering from the observing crowds. Higher and higher the rockets flew, and louder and louder the crowds grew. It was a majestic sight to see. All around the world, people watched as, for the first time in decades, a new generation was launching upwards, to the stars. To go explore the galaxies, one planet at a time.

And, as the world watched, the hopes and dreams of all people, and the hopes of all those on board, came to a crashing halt, as the spaceship suddenly burst into a brilliant white light, followed by a shimmering million pieces of spaceship flying in all directions from a singular explosion of fuel and metal.

Then came the screaming.

At first, Romilly, Erin, and their father had no reaction. The three stared upward into the sky as the crowd around them turned into a mass of surging panic. The brilliant orange and yellow sky shone in their black pupils.

"Chris!" The mother screamed. Still the father stared ahead. "Chris!"

In that instant, Romilly's father snapped from awe, to shock, to survival. He grabbed his daughter first.

"Dad?" Erin asked as she was lifted from the ground. Her mind could not connect what she had seen from what she had thought would happen. "What's happening? Dad?"

"Come on, Phillip," Romilly's mother said as she grabbed her son's hand. As Romilly turned away from the falling debris, he turned back to his left.

The blonde haired girl had not moved. Behind her, an army of men and women swarmed and fled, and yet still she stared straight ahead; her hair flowing in the gushing wind.

Romilly pulled back from his mother's grip to no avail. His eyes were locked to the girl.

"Phillip!" His mother screamed. She pulled harder on her son, and his feet started to be dragged by the much stronger force. He began to panic, trying desperately to stay in this moment; to witness this girl.

"Hey!" He screamed. Suddenly, two blue eyes turned and locked with his. The blonde-haired girl stared back at him. For a moment, or for an hour, the two looked at each other with mutual confusion and shock. Suddenly, the silence was broken.

"Run!" Romilly screamed. Suddenly his mother swept him off his feet, lifting him into the air and disorienting himself completely. At 10 years old, these would be the memories scarred into his mind until the end of his days.

The last he saw of the blonde-haired girl was her turning away from his eyes and rushing into the crowd. From here, both were sucked into the swarms of people. After several minutes, and lots of screaming, Romilly, Erin, and their parents all ended up driving quickly back to their home. The car was dead-silent.

—

Romilly and Erin both sat in the room they shared together for several hours, while the 'adults' talked outside.

_Atmospheric Pressure, _was the word Romilly kept hearing from the muffled voices through the walls. Something about atmospheric pressure and gale-force winds. Either way, no one spoke to either child from a very long time.

Eventually, the sun began to set outside the singular window in the sibling's shared room. Outside, the fields of wheat were just becoming ripe for the harvest in a month or so.

"Phillip?" Romilly's mother asked as she cracked the door open. Romilly stood to his feet. "Erin? Are you guys alright?"

Romilly said nothing. Behind him, Erin sat up on her bed. "Where's Dad?"

"He's fine," Their mother said. She motioned for Romilly to come with her. "Everyone's fine, sweetie."

"Even the spacemen?" Erin asked. She held one of her braids in her hand.

The mother gave her daughter a restrained smile, and led her son out of the room. "We'll talk about it later," was all she said as she closed the door behind her.

Romilly was led by his bother to the house's living room. Different family members stood around talking in small pods. The men hung to one side of the room, and threw around the big words, like _atmospheric anomaly_ and _aerodynamic forces_ and _structural weakness. _

The women on the other side of the room used other words; mainly _Challenger _and _Columbia._

Romilly's mother led her son through all of the men and into the kitchen, where she handed him his and Erin's dinner. Soon, after he was led back.

The evening faded into the night. The crowds of people in the living room faded away into the small moans and creaks of the house. Erin eventually calmed down and laid down for the night, as did Romilly.

Romilly, however, didn't sleep.

He laid in his bed for hours; staring into the ceiling of his small home. He tried rationalizing every event he had seen; the brilliant explosion of light, the swarm of thousands of people. The blond-haired girl, staring upwards in brilliant awe.

By two in the morning, Romilly silently crawled back out of bed, slid over to his door, and made his way to the living room.

The room was empty, and void. All the mess of plates and cups were nowhere to be found. It was as if none of the days events had ever happened in the first place.

On the walls, Romilly saw his father's life work; a doctorate degree. A shining metal of honor. A single picture of his wife in the middle of it all. On almost everything on the wall shone the four letters of the day: NASA.

Romilly had started to read the different awards to understand what they had all meant, but in his young mind, all he could manage was that his father was a great man. And as he read, he heard a faint sobbing from the bathroom. He tore himself from the wall, and made his way over.

Through a crack in the door, Romilly could see this great man. He was sitting on the toilet, head in his hands. He cried.

"…sorry," Romilly managed to mutter, before turning away. His father, however, noticed his presence.

"No," He said, almost forcefully, before sniffling deeply. "It's fine, Phillip. Come here."

Phillip Romilly made his was back into the bathroom. He leaned against the wall, opposite his father.

"Erin she doesn't—she doesn't know what happened, does she?" His father asked. Romilly shook his head.

"Do you?" He then asked.

Romilly froze for a moment, then nodded his head. _Yes. _

"I'm sorry," His father said softly. "I wish this hadn't happened. I wish I didn't take you."

"I wanted to go, Dad," Romilly said. "I wanted to see the spacemen."

Romilly stared downwards as his bare feet against the tile floor. There was a long silence between the two boys. After a minute, Romilly spoke again: "Why did it happen?"

"Lots of reasons, or maybe just one," The father said. "Many things can go wrong. It's hard to explain."

The father lowered his head again, and sobbed quietly.

"Why are you crying?" Romilly asked innocently. "Do you cry for the spacemen?"

"I cry for you, son," His father replied. He stood up and tried his best to regain his composure. "I feel sad for you, because I don't know how many more times we will try to go to space."

"Then we can just be here, on Earth, Dad," Romilly said. "This is our home."

Romilly's father looked down to his son, and for a moment, appeared to lose his composure again. Romilly would not understand what his father was thinking in that moment for another dozen years. But, in this moment, Romilly could only guess his father felt bed for a lot of reasons.

"You're right," His father said. "This is our home,"

—

"Romilly?"

Romilly's eyes shot open; he sat straight up in his sleeping unit. This time, he did not cough. He blinked several times, until the cold metal of the Endurance became clear to him. He turned to TARS.

"The others?" He asked.

"18 months, as promised," TARS said. "But no, no contact with the Ranger. They'll need more time."

Romilly took a few deep breaths, and but his hand against his head.

"Are you feeling alright?" TARS asked.

"Fine, fine," Romilly said back, exhausted. "Just had a long dream is all."

"Dreaming is good," TARS said, as he started to shift away. "I'll give you a few minutes; I've got some readings I need to go over with you, when you're ready."

"Yeah, yeah, that's fine." Romilly said. He rubbed his wet beard.

"And Rom?"

Romilly turned to the robot.

"Welcome back."


	3. 2 Years, 6 Months, 17 Days

**23 Years, 4 Months, 8 Days**

**By: BYIT**

**Chapter 3: 2 Years, 6 Months, 17 Days**

"Romilly?" TARS asked, shattering the silence. Romilly's eyes snapped open. In from of him lay countess hours of papers, work, studies. Years upon years of research and he was still just as lost as he had been so many years ago, on a field in Cape Canaveral…

"TARS, how long has it been since you woke me up?" Romilly asked.

"12 days, give or take a few hours," TARS responded. "You lost count?"

Romilly ignored him for now. "How long has it been since Cooper, Amelia, and Doyle left the _Endurance?_"

TARS responded without missing a beat. "2 years, 6 months, 17 days. I wouldn't worry about the time too much. It's about relativity. It's really only been 17 days for you."

Romilly sat up, and looked back down at his notes with a sigh. "Then why does it feel like a decade?"

—

Romilly and TARS had spent the past 12 days endlessly running over data from Gargantuan. For every breakthrough they made, two steps got taken back in the other direction. It was a grueling, dull procedure. During this time, Romilly would frequently take breaks, taking the time to run around the centrifuge, listen to his earth sounds, and talk to TARS about almost anything.

"You know why we named it the _Endurance, _TARS?" Romilly asked one day, gesturing to the large aluminum walls that surrounded man and robot.

"My own memory suggests Dr. Brand named it this way to remind humans that mankind will always endure through hard times." TARS replied.

"Well," Romilly said, sitting up, "You'd only be half-right. Any other guesses?"

TARS sat in silence. The _Endurance _was so quiet these days, Romilly could almost hear the CPU-heart of his companion buzzing endlessly, encoding more and more data and information onto it's hard drives. Romilly wondered who would read these once he was long gone.

"It's also named the _Endurance _because that was the name of the last attempted shuttle launch."

"The _Endurance _crash of 2035." TARS remembered. "You were there?"

"I was a boy." Romilly said. "A young, healthy boy, just being driven by the idea that I could leave this planet far behind…"

Romilly took in a breath. "The _Endurance _was a shuttle designed far back in the day, somewhere around the _Challenger _days before it."

"The _Challenger _was another shuttle to destroy itself," TARS recalled from his history log. "Some fifty years prior."

"You'd think NASA would know not to use fifty-year old, shuttle technology to launch people into space, wouldn't you?"

TARS took a moment. "I wouldn't claim to understand the decisions of emotional beings. Only to interpret them as I see fit."

Romilly looked up. "Alright," he said, "Interpret. Why did NASA launch a fifty-year old shuttle into space?"

"…money." TARS said after a long time. "Financially they couldn't launch anything better."

"You're right." Romilly said. "It's always about money with people. Or at least it used to be. Back then, the goal was to get to Mars. The Red Planet. We thought maybe if we went there, mankind would finally step foot on another planet. Who knows? Maybe there was food, maybe there was water. Maybe _life_."

"There is no life on Mars," TARS said bluntly.

"No," Romilly said, "There isn't. But I think you're missing my point. It wasn't about the usefulness and logistics of the trip. Everyone wanted to go to Mars at that point. NASA was trying to go, private companies…hell, they tried to make a reality TV show out of getting there. You know why?"

TARS said nothing.

"…wonder."

—

The days passed with conversations like these. Some days, Romilly would sleep in for hours. Other times, he's practice stopping and staring the centrifuge's spinning in order to become used to zero-G. Other times, he'd simply look down at the planet and wonder what his friends were doing. Maybe they were talking to Miller right now, discussing how useful this planet would be to society. Maybe this sacrifice wouldn't have been in vain.

And it really was a sacrifice. To leave everything behind, to venture out into the cosmos in search of a home. Romilly wouldn't have been here in the first place if that was the case.

Everyone he cared about was already dead.

"Settling down for the long nap so soon?" TARS asked the next morning. He had found Romilly in the sleeping chambers, preparing a hyper-sleep pod. Romilly looked up from his preparations.

"What do you suggest I do?" Romilly asked. "The texts continue to come back negative. We can't just leave the cusp of this planet, and we can't send anything near Gargantua. All we can do is record and observe."

"You could stay awake with me." TARS said. "We'll grow old together."

Romilly chuckled. "Only one of us." He climbed into his pod, and laid down slowly in the warm fluid of life.

"When do I wake you?" TARS asked.

Romilly thought for a moment. "One, when they get back to the ship. Two, when there's some sort of emergency—"

"And three?"

"In a decade."

TARS paused. "10 years?"

"That's how long it'll take to run every test we have going, through every possible scenario. If you get something, wake me up too."

"Alright then," TARS said, beginning to activate the hyper-sleep pod. "I'll just be out here…alone…"

"Good night, TARS." Romilly said. As the seal locked above him Romilly's mind began to drift once more, into the pleasant thoughts of sleep. He sank deeper and deeper, letting his mind take him away…

…

It was the crash the woke him up.

The seal above him ripped open, and looming above Romilly was TARS' metal frame.

"GET UP!" TARS shouted. Orange glowed behind him.

"What?" Romilly asked, what's happening—"

But TARS didn't need to answer the question. Because surrounding TARS and Romilly was a bright, raging fire.

And it was burning right towards the frozen human embryos.

* * *

**Long time, huh?**

**I watched _Interstellar _again, and remembered this story, and all of you. And I've decided to return to a long—abandoned project.**

**If there's demand for it, I think I've got a few ideas up my sleeve. As you can see, Romilly's time on the _Endurance _was not always a walk in the park.**

**And as for those who figured the contents of chapter 2 was referring to the Challenger, I took this opportunity to clear things up.**

**Want more? Let me know. I'll try to come back to ya'll soon.**

**-BYIT**


End file.
